


An Entrance Somewhere Else

by wheredwellthe_brave_atheart



Series: All These Difficult Things [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart/pseuds/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"On this night, however, Will wished for an extra heartbeat to fill the silence that was crushing his eardrums as he rounded the last corner, pulled towards the front lobby as though by a magnet. 'There's something waiting for me', he thought, an inexplicable feeling of urgency whispering in the back of his mind. It was in the corner he rarely allowed himself to occupy during the day - the corner marked 'Lyra'; and inside there was 'Pan', and 'Dust', and countless other miracles he remembered when he could, unwrapping the memories like fine presents, carefully preserved."</p><p>Lyra finds her way to Will's world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Entrance Somewhere Else

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the His Dark Materials world, created by Phillip Pullman. I do not claim ownership over the world or any characters used. I am not profiting in any way from this work, it is my own invention and for entertainment only, and it is not purported to be a part of Phillip Pullman’s official story line. 
> 
> The first installment in my glorious AU series, in which I can't help myself and explore Lyra and Will's lives with a Doorway discovered between their worlds. 
> 
> I truly love Pullman's version best, and believe it's the perfect (heartbreaking) ending to their story, but Lyra and Will are too beautiful not to play with.
> 
> Title from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Will Parry was a very practical doctor, whose hectic days of endless rotations between patients and meetings and conferences were seldom interrupted to allow time for daydreaming. 

 

Though he was still just shy of thirty, he was a very serious, determined man, and he often reflected that, at this point in his life; he felt weighed down by the lives he'd once lead and the knowledge that in this world, he stood apart. 

 

Particularly in the last weeks, however, Will had been unfocused, and dogged by an insistence for which he had no cause to name. His sleep had been restless, his days as fulfilling has ever, but with an edge of paranoia that crawled up the back of his spine. 

 

Tonight, he was working late in the clinic, going over patients' files with perhaps an over-zealous attention. 

 

Kirjava paced at the closed door of his office, tail spiked. "But, _Will_ ," she hissed, stalking up and down, "I can't stand it-"

 

It was the final push he needed. He stood abruptly, nodding down at her, and she batted at the door handle impatiently. He strode around his desk and gathered her in his arms, much to her own annoyance - she squirmed, but he held on, for he needed her close if he was to acknowledge this strange feeling of panic that had built to a peak this evening. 

 

They left the office and Will locked it cautiously, wishing the fluorescent lights were perhaps a bit dimmer on his tired eyes.

  
He turned to face the hall, and had to fight down a fierce urge to run, to race into the foyer, and to let his daemon leap from his arms and streak ahead of him. His neck ached and so did his missing fingers, his lungs suddenly screaming with the effort it took to not to shout.   
  
But Kirjava's claws were out, and he was grateful for the bite of their tips into the skin of his arms - it distracted him from this gnawing sense of exhilaration that was threatening to overwhelm him as he strode around the corner of his office and down the narrow hallway, each step careful and measured as he always was, as he always kept himself around everyone except perhaps Mary. 

 

The echo of his shoes bounced around the harshly-lit corridor, like water dripping off stalactites. He was often the last person left in the clinic, and tonight seemed to be no exception. If the other resident, Sara, had been here, still, if she had kept the hours he did, he would've felt reassured by her presence. He never really had before - she often watched him when she thought he wasn't looking, and sometimes he thought she wished he would watch her back. But he didn't. And he really didn't think he would ever want to. 

  


On this night, though - he wished for an extra heartbeat to fill the silence that was crushing his eardrums as he rounded the last corner, pulled towards the front lobby as though by a magnet. _There's something waiting for me,_  he thought, an inexplicable feeling of urgency whispering in the back of his mind. It was in the corner he rarely allowed himself to occupy during the day - the corner marked _Lyra;_ and inside there was  _Pan_ , and _Dust_ , and countless other miracles he remembered when he could, unwrapping the memories like fine presents, carefully preserved. 

  


"Well, get on with it, then," Kirjava whispered as he slowed at the final door, straining her neck forward. 

  


Will swiped his key card, gripping his daemon in one arm, and entered the lobby. 

  


There was a woman standing with her back turned, apparently admiring the medical diagrams posted on the far wall. She seemed to be very finely dressed, for a doctor's office, wearing a long skirt and boots, with fur around her collar. 

  


"I'm sorry," Will said, his voice weak from an evening's lack of use. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "Sorry, but we're closed." 

  


Then the woman turned, revealing a face so clearly stamped on the ridges of his heart that he knew it even though fifteen intervening years had changed it. 

  


Kirjava struggled in his arms, but Will couldn't let her go. He felt as though he had just emerged from too-long underwater. "I-"

  


"Will," the woman said, her voice warm and rich as she met his gaze. "Will, it really is-"

  


"Lyra," he croaked, stunned arms releasing Kirjava, who dropped to the floor. "Lyra, I don't- Lyra-" 

  


"All this," she said, with a strange smile, "from the boy who killed God with me-" And Pan - _it's Pantalaimon!,_  a voice within him cried, _it's Pan and Lyra!_ \- Pan unwound from Lyra's neck, and something snapped; they rushed towards each other, until Will could wrap his arms around her and clutch her desperately, and there were no words, no thought other than _Lyra!_ echoing over and over again, pouring from his lips like a benediction. She was tall and graceful in his embrace, her hair a dark honey-gold beneath his fingers, but he couldn't bear to release her to see her face, until their daemons tripped their ankles and she lost balance, tipping into him, and they fell to the floor in a heap, and he could feel her breath and her pulse and he finally took her face in his hands and kissed her, kissed her like a man brought back from the grave. 

And then she was crying, softly, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes - which she would later deny - but she sighed his name and it went through Will like fire. 

 

"How-?" he gasped, pressing his forehead against her own. "How are you here, Lyra, how is this possible?"

 

"It is, Will," she breathed, nodding furiously, clutching his hands. "It is, I'm here, and I found a door, Will, but it en't a cut, see, the alethiometer told me where to go and I found it-"

 

"Alright," he said, sensing the story behind everything. "Alright, we should- have you eaten?" She laughed at him, then, and he had to join her, chest aching and hands trembling, because he never thought he would be able to laugh with her again. "Where- oh, bloody hell, Lyra, I don't know what to do next," he confessed. He felt lightheaded with joy, and couldn't imagine doing anything other than staying right here on the floor of his clinic, with Lyra and Pan and Kir all tangled with him. Where could they possibly go, here in his world, when everything he knew was now changed? 

 

She shook her head. "Anywhere," she shrugged, still holding his hand. "Anywhere, with you." 

 

He kissed her again, gently, and thought back to the feeling of trepidation that had pulled him to the lobby, of the whispers that had plagued him over the past few days, and it was all because of Lyra. 

  


Of course it was Lyra, it was Lyra and she was the magnet, and he had never stood a chance. 

 

...

 

They made their way to Will's flat, walking because he couldn't bear to focus on anything other than her, and along the way Lyra explained some of what she'd been up to in the past fifteen years - college with Dame Hannah, reading the alethiometer step by arduous step, eventually coming to work at Oxford and trying to, in her words, 'bash some sense into those decrepit old men's heads'. 

 

"And of course they expect me to be my mother, at first," she rolled her eyes as they approached his building. "And when they discover I'm not they generally just want my father's money, and a spokeswoman to smile prettily, right-"

 

Will chuckled as he pictured the terrified scholars when they inevitably realized just exactly who they were dealing with. "And you're...an explorer?" he asked, trying to work around the idioms from her world. 

 

Pantalaimon pulled a face from his position on the step. "Sort of," he said, and explained that she did have quite a lot of official, respectable duties as well. 

 

"You're a politician," Will smiled, when she had explained enough so he could understand her role in what functioned as their government. Picturing all the good someone like Lyra could do with enough power made him stop and stand on the steps of his address. 

 

She shrugged. "Well, I suppose. I am in charge of quite a lot of people, and I do work to make new laws. I go on diplomatic assemblies, you know, to make peace with the witches and to appeal to the Bears, and I build trade with the gyptians-"

 

"Minister for Foreign Affairs," Will crowed, when she wouldn't admit her own importance. "Lyra, it's perfect."

 

"Well, of course it is," she huffed. "Do you think I'd be doing it if it wasn't? Now, hurry up inside, your England is colder than mine, and I'm tired of not being alone with you."

 

They went to his flat, and dinner was, in fact, postponed, to allow for activities that were utterly more pressing. 

...

 

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Lyra awoke with hair in her mouth and Will's strong arms wrapped around her. 

 

She blinked and coughed as the strange room solidified around her, her dreams washing away as she remembered where she was. 

 

Will remained asleep, his body warm and long in the bed, tangled with hers. He lay next to her, his breath the even rise and fall of a man fast asleep. 

 

So Lyra stayed quiet and watched breath fill Will Parry's lungs, and thought her heart would burst from her chest, for this was once a sight so unattainable that she was flooded with gratitude at her fortune.  

 

All of a sudden, a thought struck her, and she reached out and pinched Pan once, none too gently, on the shoulder. 

 

"Ouch," he hissed, twisting around with bared teeth. "This is real, you idiot, so there's no need for that." 

 

"Well, I had to be sure, didn't I?" she whispered, stroking his fur all the same. 

 

"And you couldn't have pinched yourself?"

 

"Don't be ridiculous," she replied, in the posh voice she generally saved for potential donors. "And besides, you are myself."

  


Pan snuffled and curled closer to her. "Lyra," he whispered, thoughtfully, "we are very lucky, tonight." 

  


She nodded into his fur, her throat tight as she saw Kirjava open her lamp-light eyes. 

  


"Oh," the cat said, stretching upright. "Are you two awake, then?"

  


Will's eyes fluttered open, blinking slowly. 

  


"Hello, there," Lyra murmured, and he passed a hand over his face, chuckling in the darkness of the bedroom. 

  


"What is it?" she asked, when he rolled over onto his back, laughing still. 

  


"It's just-" he fought off another wave of mirth. "It's just - oh, God, Lyra. I love you."

  


She felt an odd smile creep across her face. "Well, what's so funny about that?" she asked, wondering if she should be offended. 

  


Will calmed and shifted close again, a hand coming up to rest on her ribcage. "Not funny," he said, his dark eyes finding hers. "It's just - I love you. I couldn't say that to you, for so long. And now - I can say it, and I know you're hearing it," he swallowed thickly, shifting in the bed. "I can say it, and see your face. I can say it," he said, drawing her close, "And kiss you afterwards." 

 

He did so, with a tenderness that made Lyra warm and aching. She pressed a hand against his chest, and gasped softly when he moved his mouth to her jaw. "And what if I wanted to say it?" she asked, throwing her head back as Will's mouth found her throat. "What if I said that I love you, Will Parry, with every particle in my soul, more than anyone in all the worlds has ever loved someone?" she declared breathlessly, as Will kissed her collarbone, her breast. 

 

She had seen horrors unimaginable and survived unscathed, but Will Parry's lips on her skin crushed the air from her lungs and sent her heartbeat stuttering quicker than a dragonfly's wings. 

 

He replied by moving on top of her once more, strong arms holding him up while she hooked a leg around his hip. She took his face in her hands, his dark, serious face still lit with disbelief and happiness. She had so often pictured his stubborn brow, his hard cheekbones, his sharp jaw in her moments of loneliness. But it had been a boy's face, more often than not, her mind struggling to reshape his bones as time wore on. Looking at him now, she tried to sear the image in her mind as if with some tool from Iorek's forge all those years ago. She wanted to memorize the hairs at his temples, and the line of his nose, and the curve of his mouth, all of it exactly, pressed against her fingertips. 

 

Pan and Kirjava were tangled at the foot of the bed, and every so often her foot would brush against the cat's soft fur, sending chills down Lyra's spine. 

 

The first time earlier that night, had been frantic, desperate - she'd felt terrified at the intensity of her love for Will, terrified because she has spent so long guarding herself against imaging this that she hadn't known how to let go. But he had made her feel safe, and she loved him so very much everything became easy. And she felt calmer, now - really, how could she not, lying in Will's arms? 

 

She reached up and brushed the hair away from his brow, canting her hips against his desperately. 

 

He aligned their bodies and slid inside her once more, until she arched her back and groaned for movement. Her hips rolled in time with his thrusts, building a rhythm that made her brace herself, arms thrown up around his neck. He tangled his good fingers in her hair, panting slightly in time with each smooth thrust. 

 

She reached back and grabbed his hand - _his knife hand_ , she thought of it - and brought it to her mouth, kissing his knuckles, his fingertips trembling under her touch. She let him go and his hand found her hip, and then his thumb pressed at the apex between her legs. 

 

"Will-" she gasped, feeling herself approaching the edge. "Oh, Will-"

 

"Lyra," he breathed, staring wide-eyed down at her. "Lyra, do you see-"

 

But she lost his words as pleasure was sent racing from her core along her every extremity, and she had to close her eyes. When she opened them again, Will's breath hitched, his lips parting and eyes closing with pleasure as his hips jerked, overwhelmed; and then she saw what he had been trying to say before. She could see Dust was all around them - Will was alight with it, it glowed in his hair and around his whole body, wrapped around him like some glittering cloak. 

 

"Oh," she whispered, as Will sank down and she gathered his head to her chest.

 

"You see it, too?" he asked, holding her close. 

 

"Yes," she murmured, though even as she watched the Dust floated down, spiralling like snowflakes to shimmer away before her eyes. 

 

 _Tomorrow_ , she thought, _tomorrow we'll see Mary, and I'll explain everything again._

 

She felt her pulse slow, and she rested her head with Will's. _We can really talk about the alethiometer, and the Door... And maybe we'll see his mother, if he's ready._

 

 _And...and, tomorrow, I'll still be here_ , she thought, and allowed herself to relax. 

 

For now, that was enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! More to follow in the series :)


End file.
